🍃 Cleaning out leaves in my grandfather’s driveway (the value of a single, hard hour of work)
👩🏫 Being a teacher’s assistant for my mom’s classes (responsibility towards the next generation, teaching, empathy, the joy I can experience when helping others)
🎨 Painting houses (the value of a single, hard day of work to achieve a goal; keeping clients happy)
🎧 Recording Local Bands (bringing other people’s creative visions to life)
💪🏻 Moving Luggage (hustling to get business; the value of a single, hard day of back breaking work to make money)
🌱 Selling pot (managing cash flow; supply & demand; investing for growth; risk & reward)
🎶 Playing in a Sinatra cover band (how to fake it; putting on a show)
📞 Fundraising in a call center (the importance of making your own money; delivering a quick pitch)
🎯 Tutoring a 5th grade kid with ADHD in math (patience; saving for a dream)
🤯 Working the college teacher support hotline (how frustrating a system can be)
🤝 Freelance design (developing process; client service; invoicing; biz dev and making 'the sale'; working with vendors; admin; balancing creative pursuits / burnout / life)
☠️ Temp design for an in house agency (understanding the life in design I did not want to live; the cost of saving to move to NY; the importance of having a vision for myself and my work)
💃 Working for my mentor in her 2 person studio (how a joyful atmosphere contributes to great work; how to prioritize family over work)
💸 Working for a non profit design studio (the value of being able to walk to work; the importance of quality of output, not just working for a good cause)
👯♀️ Working in-house for a non profit arts organization (the value of working for a mission-driven company; viewing my work as a program / system, not just a collection of individual deliverables; design in the context of business functions)
🤸♂️ Working for a small startup agency (the value of a nimble committed team; how fulfilling the immediacy of sitting shoulder to shoulder with developers to build can be)
😅 Working for a large consulting agency (the efficiencies and inadequacies of scale; leading teams and managing humans; being accountable for the quality and efficacy of the work; the value of documentation; perfecting my dog & pony show; navigating corporate cultures)
☁️ Working for a tech product (building and managing a team; socializing vision; gaining influence)
✨ Volunteering on a Non-Profit Board (working with 24 strong voices in a room; focusing on sustainable change; the joy of working with others committed to making things better; combatting institutional amnesia)
🤔 Teaching graduate students (building and enhancing a curriculum; teaching a group of individuals)